Identification and characterization of the bacterial D-gluconate dehydratase in Achromobacter xylosoxidans

Abstract

Achromobacter xylosoxidans is known to utilize D-glucose via the modified Entner-Doudoroff pathway. Although D-gluconate dehydratase produced from this bacterium was purified and partially characterized previously, a gene that encodes this enzyme has not yet been identified. To obtain protein information on bacterial D-gluconate dehydratase, we partially purified D-gluconate dehydratase in A. xylosoxidans and investigated its biochemical properties. Two degenerate primers were designed based on the N-terminal amino acid sequence of the partially purified D-gluconate dehydratase. Through PCR performed using degenerate primers, a 1,782-bp DNA sequence encoding the A. xylosoxidans D-gluconate dehydratase (gnaD) was obtained. The deduced amino acid sequence of A. xylosoxidans gnaD showed strong similarity with that of proteins belonging to the dihydroxy-acid dehydratase/phosphogluconate dehydratase family (COG0129). This is in contrast to the archaeal D-gluconate dehydratase, which belongs to the enolase superfamily (COG4948). The phylogenetic tree showed that A. xylosoxidans D-gluconate dehydratase is closer to the 6-phosphogluconate dehydratase than the dihydroxy-acid dehydratase. Interestingly, a clade containing A. xylosoxidans enzyme was clustered with proteins annotated as a second and a third dihydroxy-acid dehydratase in the genomes of Clostridium acetobutylicum (Cac_ilvD2) and Streptomyces ceolicolor (Sco_ilvD2, Sco_ilvD3), indicating that the function of these enzymes is the dehydration of D-gluconate. (c) KSBB.